


Starlight Burnt Out

by Saentorine



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Backstory, Dragons, Elf Culture & Customs, Elves, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family History, Grief/Mourning, Marriage, Mirkwood, No Dialogue, Parenthood, Purple Prose, Requited Love, Sad Ending, Sindar, Tragic Romance, War, in-universe politics, thranduil-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3231716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>From hairline to neck, the burns distort her perfect skin with a raw red rash. The symmetry of her face is shattered by a gaping open wound, bare sinews binding cheek to jaw arrayed in petals like a skeletal flower. Her eyes lie open wide to the stars but one of them has burnt out, bleached and blinded by the fire. But it is of little matter, for those eyes will never see again.</i>
</p>
<p>From the time his family arrives in the Greenwood until he loses her to dragonfire, a history of the great love of Thranduil's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight Burnt Out

**Author's Note:**

> Thranduil's wife has no canonical name and frankly I'd feel pretentious making one up for her-- and, hey, if Tolkien can go the whole of _The Hobbit_ without referring to Thranduil specifically by name, I figured I could do it, too :P So I hope this doesn't make things unnecessarily confusing.

At the beginning of the second age of the sun, a party of grey elves appears at the edge of a great wood. Even the youngest of their cavalcade, barely counted past childhood, rides with a somber dignity, his back straight under a flow of golden hair and heavy brows concentrated over pensive icy eyes. The first century of his life has been witness to tumult, the decline of a great elven civilization marked by invasion, assassination, war, and finally the dissolution of its people across the realm, although he endured it mostly from the safety of his mother’s arms. He has learned the better part of his people’s history on the road in flight from Doriath, riding between his parents as a small party of their kin explore the vast continent, parting from the rest of their people and the influence of the Noldor his father distrusts. He yet knows nothing firsthand of the horrors of war save the tales he has been told and the quiet agitation he senses in his father as he tells them, but he knows well enough that it is war and greed that has made them wanderers, abandoning a home now lost beneath the sea.

Their procession is a sensation to the host they soon encounter within the forest, who recognize the mark of civilization upon them and knows them to be elves of twilight, more favored by the Valar for heeding their summons to the West (even as some of them yet tarry to do so). Although they struggle to make themselves comprehensible to each other, their tongues having parted since the division of their people, they are curious about the land they have left, the customs they maintain, and the great histories they bring with them. They are particularly impressed by his father’s arms and armor, and the staid dignity with which he rides, which to them makes him seem as lofty as a king.

Meanwhile, his father recognizes these woodland people as their distant kin from an ancient age, who much like himself have declined to depart immediately for the land across the western sea. They have settled comfortably in the forest, leading simple lives that are lively and merry. Their innocent joy is a comfort to him, and for the first time in his son’s living memory he smiles and laughs in their company, grows foolish on their wine, and finds he does not mind the flattery they pay him implying he ought to rule as their king, as they have no experience in organized defense such as he has. After a few months’ respite in their care, he has made up his mind; he is not so old and weary to wish to abandon the humble pleasures of the wood and would prefer to tarry a while with his folk.

There is a celebration and the elves of the wood crown him in a pastoral headdress of boughs and flowers, seat him upon a wooden throne, and place a carved scepter in his hand. He is charmed by the rustic simplicity in the accoutrements of this new monarchy and promises to rule them in kind protection with all the skill and knowledge of his people.

But the new prince of the Greenwood has found his own reason to embrace his new home.

He sees her amongst the singers who serenade their feast, and having long mastered composure while drinking at his father’s table he is certain wine has never made him so flushed or dizzy as he is now-- but perhaps he is wrong to blame the wine. Perhaps it is the starlight that shines in her keen eyes and casts a halo on her long silken mane. Perhaps it is the joyous songs of the wood folk through which he detects the sweet timbre of her voice, which seems to him as heavenly as the harmonies of the Ainur themselves. Perhaps it is the spirited dances that dizzy and disorient him, and give him opportunity to take her hands. As the night wears on they speak and he learns a little about her, her family and the simple life she has led in the wood, and he shares with her the briefest history of his people and his place amongst it-- but it is not long before the two of them feel as if everything that has transpired before is nothing compared to what lies ahead of them now that they have met.

As the seasons turn and his people grow more comfortable in their forest home, he grows only closer to her. His father briefly raises a critical voice to her woodland blood, but his mother offers reason that as they have chosen to dwell in the woodland such a marriage would surely strengthen the love of their subjects. Besides, in the custom of elves they cannot forbid the two from binding as they will without their blessing. They bestow it and the two are pledged.

It is the longest year of their long lives, he is sure, to have to wait patiently when they are already so certain, but the year passes and they are wed. Per their custom they exchange their silver pledge-rings for rings of gold and he is given a jewel to wear by her mother. He promises her that one day, he will find a way to capture pure starlight to be worn about _her_ throat, for nothing else in the worldly realm could ever suit her unmatched beauty.

With his father and mother reigning still, in their early years the crown prince and his bride enjoy much blissful leisure together. Sometimes he is nervous that their indiscretions step beyond the bounds of propriety, but the king and queen merely smile upon them fondly, remembering the days in ages past when their own blood quickened by mere glances towards each other. But though their marriage is marked by the union of their bodies, their time together far transcends this only pleasure. He tells her the tales he was raised on of the glory of King Thingol’s reign in Doriath and coaches her in the proper speech of his people as well as the common tongue a queen ought to know for diplomacy, while she teases him for the foreign affectations he retains when trying her own woodland dialect. As the son of a general-king he cannot allow his battle skills to decay even in the protective shelter of the trees, so she practices swordplay and longbow with him as well as the small-bow archery and daggers best suited for defense and sustenance in the thickness of the forest. She helps him to track, tame, and eventually ride a calf of the great elk that roam the Greenwood, and although he knows much of the credit lies with her, he cannot help but puff with pride when she insists no soul has before mastered one as his mount so ably as he has.

At their leisure they roam the vastness of the woodland kingdom, becoming intimate with its various hills, hovels, and caves, its flora and fauna, the clearings with the best view of sun and starlight filtering down through the canopy. Sometimes they journey beyond the edge of the forest to sit in view of the Lonely Mountain and the great long lake of Esgaroth, occasionally sleeping beneath the stars and waking to the glorious sunrise reflected on the water. At times she sighs and laments how her people have resisted the call of the Valar, wondering if the lake has provoked the sea-longing that afflicts their kind. He laughs heartily to even compare the lake to the vastness of the sea, but recognizes the faint longing stirring quietly within his own heart as well. He makes her another promise, that at the end of their days, when they have finally tired of the mortal realm, they will sail together for Valinor and she will see the sea at last.

***

Although they grow ever more attached to their home in the great Greenwood, the king ensures they remain a mobile people. Scarred by the memory of the dwarves who murdered his king and jealously protective of the autonomy of his realm from Lórien, he ensures their capital remains far from their influence. Three times they pack up and inch northward from Amon Lanc, away from the growing power of Moria and the elf-kings to the west.

The uncertainty of this nomadic existence makes her anxious, and the prince comforts her even as he defends his father’s uneasiness, knowing his intention is to protect the placid innocence of the woodland folk. But he frets as well when her belly remains barren, thwarted by the disquiet of their itinerant life.

However, no sooner have they settled in the north than a force far more destructive than the king’s war-scarred imagination begins brewing in Arda, and they know of it even within the depths of their forest. There is a sense of unease gnawing deep within their hearts, a knowing that something evil on the rise. The king is agitated by more frequent dispatches and emissaries from beyond his borders, but it is not tribute, trade, or influence they desire, but his succor, all his power as one of the great elf-kings still in the east. The growing shadow has a name, a body-- and worst of all, a master ring of power that even the elf-lords with their own cannot thwart, and the kings of men have fallen to his influence. From the highest Noldor to the basest dwarf, the remaining good peoples of the land have begun to assemble to destroy his power.

Eventually even the prince and his wife cannot help but acknowledge it; it is true they have never had much dealing with the world beyond their wood, they know little of the goings-on in the greater world, but if great powers such as these fear this so that even old enemies have joined hands as allies, surely it is nothing to take lightly. Finally, the king concedes. No stranger to battle in her final days in Doriath, his queen accompanies him—and there is no question that of course his son, his heir now centuries-trained in the battle arts of his ancestors, will fight at his side. 

Only the prince’s bride remains in the Greenwood, trusted by her woodland kin to calm them of their fears and ensure the safety of their borders should the conflict encroach upon them there. His heart aches to part with her for the first time in centuries and before their union has been sealed with the permanency of a child, but he is grateful for her safety. In truth he cannot imagine her gentle soul partaking in something so brutal and cruel as a war. He has seen what such a thing has done to his father.

***

As the great alliance rallies in the south, the prince is startled by the diversity and depth of the people of Arda in its second age, the kingdoms of men that have built empires as they have kept their solitude in the Greenwood. So easy it has been for them to ignore these smaller, more fragile lives, yet now they must depend upon them as equals in this fight against what could easily destroy them all. Nevertheless, it is difficult for new friends to be made and old enmity to be overlooked, and the prince feels his father’s discomfort and unease as they meet with the other elven generals. For his own part, the prince straightens and fixes a challenging gaze on the questioning eyes that look to his unorthodox mount.

Maybe it is hubris, maybe it is his lingering distrust of the Noldor, maybe it has simply been too long since he has answered to another, but the woodland king does not wait for the call of their leader Gil-Galad before he leads his troops into the fray. They charge for the black gate with the full force of their vast elven army, arrows aloft and swords at the ready, colliding with one of the greatest evils their world has ever known, at the very height of its current power. The prince has never known such chaos as this, as this sea of strange allies is thrown together in this battle for the fate of the entire realm.

He sees his father fall but he cannot hesitate, taking up his command with cool reserve even as he feels as though he may choke on his very words. His father’s soldiers heed him as fluently as if they were attached to his very body, but this body is simply not strong enough. Their woodland weapons are lesser to those of the Western elves and no match at all for the first assault of the forces of Mordor.

In the wake of battle he finds his father, eyes empty of light and all color flushed from his face, and arranges him in a posture of kingly dignity for his eternal rest. It takes him longer to find his mother, whom he had fruitlessly hoped had survived despite falling from his view, but he cleans the worst of the blood from her armor and carries her to lie beside her husband in death.

When he has finished with this ritual, he lifts his head to see the devastation around him. All across the field his father’s subjects are knelt beside their fallen comrades and loved ones, closing their glassy eyes for the last time. Some bodies lie with no one to mourn them, all who have known them lost alongside them. He feels something within his own beating heart die a little to see all of these immortal beings, who might have lived to see several ages of the sun, snuffed out.

In the end the alliance prevails and the dark lord Sauron is vanquished, but this victory has a bitter taste. They have won, but at what cost to the Greenwood? Their force is depleted by more than half, and he knows they will lose still more from their wounds as well as to the Grey Havens as those too weary in their grief will seek respite in Valinor. Beaten and exhausted, he mounts his great elk and with a simple incline of his head calls the survivors back for the long journey home. 

She says nothing but she knows, as soon as she sees his solitary figure astride his elk and the weary forces that accompany him. He takes up his father’s crown, its sharp branches appropriately barren for the winter months and his own grief, but for the most part withdraws into the solitude of his private chambers and the comfort of his wife’s arms. He needs this now more than he ever has before, this reminder that his immortal heart still beats, that he is capable of more than assisting death, and within him still lies the promise of life.

***

As the killing frost ever melts away to reveal the crocuses of spring, grief eventually gives way to joy. They have not yet mourned a century when on a bright day in late spring they are given their prince. For one year he grows strong in her belly, all the while her color high and glowing with delight and anticipation, and he is born in the season of the verdant leaves for which he is named. 

There is peace in this new age, at least in the kingdom of the Greenwood. Just as a razed forest grows anew, the woodland realm recovers from its losses and becomes strong again. Although he cannot help but to have inherited some of the wariness of his father, the king reaches tentative hands towards neighboring peoples whose wares and crafts elevate their realm from a rustic hideaway to a great and populous kingdom. The woodland folk embrace their new king as dear to them as he were their native son, loving him perhaps more than they ever loved his father. He grows comfortable on his throne, his queen seated proudly beside him.

Matured in the wisdom borne of age and grief and calmed by their duties to the kingdom and their son, the youthful appetite the king and queen had for one another lessens from its early fire. They become more like ancient trees grown side by side in a deep forest, keeping their staid distance from each other to all the world’s eyes-- yet their roots are entwined ever more inextricably beneath the surface with the passing of the years, unquestionably linked for the duration of their long lives. Perhaps the child does not see it, not yet understanding for himself such eternal joining of two souls, but he is nevertheless nurtured for the presence of it, nestled in the safety of shade they provide for him and growing in the rich soil of their roots. 

But in the idyllic tranquility of the woodland realm there is little to fear on his behalf and he is ever dashing off to play in the sheltering forest, climbing and leaping amongst the thick boughs and mastering his archery and knives in lively competition with his friends. They do not think that in less than a millennia this mimicry of guerrilla warfare will come to occupy the better part of their energy and strength, for now it is only child’s play, but the boy's skill soon becomes that of a seasoned warrior. The king’s heart swells with pride, knowing his father would be pleased with his grandson who retains all the grace and finesse of the great grey elves in his bloodline before him-- but in the same breath, he prays to the Valar that his son never see the wandering and devastation they have seen. 

***

A millennium passes, the child becomes an adult, and a darkness begins to grow again in their world. And this time, the Greenwood bears its brunt.

They see it first in the hues of the native wildlife: the tawny and auburn of the squirrels, the brown of the bats, and the shimmering rainbow of the butterflies all darkening to portentous black. It is not long before newer, deadlier inhabitants arrive to feast upon them: grotesque spiders that hang their prey by threads for days before slowly sucking the life from them; goblins who occasionally wander from their dank caves; and orcs, those cursed corruptions of what once were elves but now thrive in dark and death. The elves have no quarrel with the myriad creatures of the forest but these are of an unnatural evil, a dark force strange to their lands. The air becomes a thick and heavy miasma that haunts all who wander too long or far from the path and the water grows hallucinogenic, poisoning those who drink with desperate and consuming dreams. The trees become scarce to blossom, no longer bearing fruit, and nuts are rare and shriveled—but they grow thick with dark foliage conspiring to block the sun and starlight alike, as good as if they were underground.

_Mirkwood_ , the men begin to call the Greenwood, shirking its borders in fear. The king pays this little mind. If fewer souls choose to breach the dark edges of his forest, all the safer for those who dwell within.

There is a troublesome familiarity about the one who seizes Amon Lanc, which forces them to give up for lost the familiar firs of the south. But he has lost too many already to this shadow, once before and now again, to wish to confront it at any cost. With an eye to the great caves of Menegroth from long ago in a distant Doriath he barely remembers, he seals a new palace deep within the earth. The wood-elves barricade themselves between the mountains and the river, cramped and wary, but at least they are safe.

The years in this fortress are not intolerable. They adorn the caves in elven beauty, carving the stone into meandering paths and semblances of trees. It is dark and rustic in comparison to the homey Imladris and pristine Lothlórien, far from the greatness of Menegroth, but it is comfortable. With cleverness and ingenuity they filter water and maintain gardens beneath the ground, keeping their air clean and bright and sustaining themselves wholesomely despite the affliction of the wood above. With their superior senses and centuries of familiarity with the terrain, they defend a solid portion of wood in the north and maintain hold of the riverway, the lifeline by which the men of the lake supply them with fish and wine. They are even merry, continuing to mark the time-honored passages of seasons and starlight-- although the irony of celebrating starlight they can never see is not lost on them. He can see how the queen wilts in the darkness of a forest overgrown too thick for the distant light to enter, for which the torches and candlelight are no substitute, and ponders yet again whether there might be a less elusive, more corporeal substitute for their brightness, that she might wear and be comforted.

Even in their revelry they are ever vigilant of attackers, prepared to dash out their lights and flee to the safety of the trees and caves at a moment’s notice. Long days of dark hours stretch on as miniature eternities each time he calls for the gates to be closed against the latest force raging against their stronghold. When the threat grows too great for their guard, when the cost of life no longer justifies an offense, they simply hole up behind their impenetrable walls and wait them out, the patience of their immortality their best defense.

However, as they wait, the darker powers in Arda only grow stronger. Just beyond the northern mountains another portentous force is gathering, wrought by one of those corrupted kings of men who fell to Sauron once before. The Witch-king of the Nazgul stakes his hold in the snowy wasteland of the iron lands then lashes at the surrounding territories, threatening the likes of Rhudaur, Cardolan, and even Imladris.

His queen insists they can no longer hide in their hovel as the world is threatened again. He agrees to send a small cohort to support their elven brothers over the mountains, but she is not satisfied. She is weary and restless from their years within their elaborate bunker. Between them and Angmar lies only a thin band of river and mountains, and unchecked its force will surely spill over into their lands. Barely holding against the shadow from the south, they will be crushed by the darkness binding them on both sides, with nowhere to retreat. 

They must weed out this evil at its source.

He understands his fathers’ reticence as he did not understand it before, the shuddering fear of returning to the head of an army, condemning would-be immortal lives to their deaths in a distant land. He is their protector; how can he ask them of this? The part of his heart still dead with the loss of his father cries out in wretched rebellion at the prospect of riding into foreign battle once more, but the living part of him-- the part of his heart that still beats strong with love for their kingdom, the part of him that knows his father’s loss paid for a thousand years’ peace-- cannot deny her, and cannot deny _them_ , his people.

However, it is what she suggests next that nearly turns his wrath against her: She is coming too.

He calls her reckless and unwise, curses her lack of foresight, accuses her of suicidal idiocy to expect the whole of their household to ride into the fray with no one left to mourn them, but she is calm as she explains that he misunderstands; her purpose is to ensure their family is _not_ extinguished, because it is her son’s spot she will take at the king’s side. He will remain in the wood, where he is safe-- for if she loses him, she does not expect to survive the journey to the Grey Havens; she will simply die on the spot. She will face the risk of death to buy his chance for life.

His heart stills as he realizes this partner he has loved-- will always love-- and has spent the better part of several thousand years’ bliss, grief, triumph, defeat, and growth together would exchange several thousand years’ more for the mere chance her son might live another hundred. And if he, her husband and king loves her as much, he must accept this from her. He accepts and makes his final promise to her: that should she fall, their son will live to make his journey to the West in his own time.

It is a difficult trade for the prince to accept, however. Naïve to all concept of loss or death—indeed, not even truly understanding how long they will be absent, having never been far from them before—he balks at what he perceives as an insult to his abilities. He has lived a full millennium and nearly half another, older than both his father and grandfather when they made the journey from Doriath. The king counters that he has yet never left the wood and is fully unprepared for such a battle, exaggerates accusations of youthful recklessness and naivety, and silences his arguments. He says all that is necessary to subdue him, guarding his own heart and ignoring the shattered pain in his son’s eyes as he commands him with the peremptory force of fatherhood and crown. The cracks and fissures in the bond between them are small price to pay for his safety and his mother’s will.

***

They ride into the barren, snowy highlands in heavy cloaks to guard the chill, but what the elvenking remembers most is the _heat_. Like a fiery dawn a seam of red illuminates the mountains to the north before the worst of Angmar’s power washes over into the plains of jagged karst, and they see: they are accompanied by dragons.

The king and queen are separated in the fray as she joins the line of archers who aim for the fire-drakes and he prepares his footsoldiers for their assault against the orcs and black riders who crest the hills behind him. The few who remember Dagorlad feel its echoes here, but the majority of his host has never fought where there are not trees to guard and protect them, and all the diligent drilling and training of the centuries has not prepared them for the terrible exposure of their battalion to the wrathful flames of dragons. Nevertheless, they stand fast against the assault in perfect formation, all their power bent on seizing the fort at Mount Gundabad, their stronghold. They take some ground and drive the first wave back, the dragons crashing themselves against the stone of the mountains to shake the broken arrows from their backs.

They have only just recovered from the first offense when his attendant summons his attention with a quiet word. He knows what has happened the instant he turns to follow him, the possibility having plagued his nightmares from the moment she committed herself to his force, but he know nothing could ever have prepared him for the moment he comes to the singed patch of dirt where she has fallen.

From hairline to neck, the burns distort her perfect skin with a raw red rash. The symmetry of her face is shattered by a gaping open wound, bare sinews binding cheek to jaw arrayed in petals like a skeletal flower. Her eyes lie open wide to the stars but one of them has burnt out, bleached and blinded by the fire. 

But it is of little matter, for those eyes will never see again.

Something hardens in him then, and shatters. The blood in his veins turns to frost. He feels as if it is his own body that has caught flame, his own skin bubbling and cracking open from the fire. But there is no time now for his private grief, not when even now the dragons turn back again, flanked by another horde of shadowy soldiers astride their dark beasts. He takes in the sight of the onslaught, measures it against his remaining soldiers, and makes his call as a king and general: once again, to retreat. They have only just cleared the jagged plains for the safety of rocky cave as the beasts overtake the field and raze it with their hellish breath.

The Elvenking watches as the iron lands are devoured by the holocaust, consuming all the dead and dying so no grave can mark them. He never closes her empty eyes, nor looks his last into her face as he apologizes for failing in one promise to her, vowing yet again to keep the others. He does not mark a grave where she has fallen. Her body simply dissipates into the aether and is gone.

Although the fire never touches his own body, it leaves a scar that will never heal.

For the second time in what now feels like far too long of a life, he packs up for the wood with what remains of his depleted forces. They cannot win this fight, no matter how many lives they cast into the flames. They depart with many a glance back to the charred landscape in impossible hope that something might have survived, but there is none.

Her roots so long entwined with his have rotted away, leaving him on unstable ground; a single blow could fell him now, he is sure. He is weary, acutely aware of the weight of a life of so many centuries, and the quiet longing in his heart to leave this mortal realm has troubled to a roar, louder than the waves of the sea itself. But the loved ones he has lost are not waiting for him in the West; they are gone, and so he keeps his promise. Once again he mounts his elk and leads the survivors back to the only true home he has ever known, where the woodland folk and his golden-haired son wait for his return in the heart of the darkening forest.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this when after seeing the final _Hobbit_ film I had a bunch of feels, and because I also wanted to provide more of an explanation for Thranduil’s dragonfire wound in _The Desolation of Smaug_ \-- since _The Battle of the Five Armies_ didn't really explain it any more clearly, though I inferred (or maybe I just want to believe) it has some connection to the loss of his wife. Since non-fatal physical wounds are not a particularly big deal for elves but grief and broken hearts can be deadly, and elves have such immensely strong connections to their partners, I like the idea that maybe his “wound” is actually more emotional than physical; _she_ is the one who was burned but he manifests the scar on himself via his memory.
> 
> I tried to weave together all the known history of these characters in such as way as to make this compliant with both book and movie canon, but I had to assume, speculate, and outright invent some things to tie it all together, and I'm sure there's bound to be something I got wrong. Please be kind if you inform me of it (: I'd be happy to comment on my timeline and choices if asked. 
> 
> That being said, LOADS of thanks to my friend Jessica and all of her lore knowledge for consulting with me on this, including actually answering when I woke her up at ungodly hours of the morning to ask her her thoughts on shit like Mirkwood trade arrangements and (for the 18th time) whether this timeline makes sense.


End file.
